EV charging stations

The electric vehicle community has been in a huge dither the last few days after Ivan Penn, energy reporter for the New York Times wrote what many felt was a hit job on electric vehicles. In fact the article got some things wrong about EVs and road tips, but it also revealed some shortcomings of legacy automakers’ EVs.

For the lodging industry, the growth of electric vehicles provide both challenges and opportunities to ownership and management. As ownership of EVs increases and the average range of pure electric vehicles closes in on 300 miles, EV-driving guests will be taking more road trips and increasingly expect that lodging hosts offer several charging station options on their property.

How many public EV charging stations are needed within a market to support the charging needs of owners of EVs within a market? The minimum acceptable ratio is actually going to vary a fair amount by the unique combination of factors in each region and market, which is the focus of a follow-on article. With that said, however, my belief is that at least for the next 5-7 years, a ratio of 15-20 to 1 will in fact meet demand in most markets.

In Northern California, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) commuters will likely increasingly be able to charge their EVs at a growing number of transit station parking lots. BART recently conducted two EV-related surveys and has begun a pilot charging station program at one of its stations. I reached out to BART with several questions and have included their answers in their entirety below: